Kinder Morgan says it intends to increase the capacity of its proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project by almost 20 per cent as a result of commitments it has received from shippers wanting access to Asian markets through the Alberta-to-Burnaby pipeline.

In a news release Thursday, the pipeline company said it now has 13 customers in the oil producing and marketing business that have signed long-term contracts to have 700,000 barrels a day of oil delivered to Burnaby.

The expansion makes it the largest of two proposals to bring additional oilsands bitumen to the West Coast, eclipsing Enbridge’s 520,000 barrel-a-day Northern Gateway proposal.

“These additional commitments will result in an increase in the proposed expansion capacity from 750,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day,” the company stated in a news release.

That total is enough oil per day to fill 56.6 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Most would be destined for Asian markets, increasing tanker traffic through Vancouver harbour from the current five tankers a month to an estimated 34 tankers a month.

Kinder Morgan subsidiary Trans Mountain already operates a 300,000-barrel a day pipeline along the route delivering oil and gasoline to the Interior, southwestern B.C., Washington State and offshore markets. Increasing demand has resulted in existing customers, like Chevron Canada’s Burnaby refinery, having their quota cut back. Chevron is supplementing its supply by bringing oil in by rail and tanker truck.

Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson said in a news release that the expansion represents a capital investment of $5.4 billion and will complete the twinning of the existing pipeline from Strathcona County, Alberta, to Burnaby. Kinder Morgan had previously set the cost of the expansion project at $4.1 billion.

The expansion is being opposed by municipalities such as Vancouver and Burnaby as well as First Nations, concerned over the risks of an oil spill.

“We are not at all surprised that this news of increasing the capacity has come up,” said Tsleil-Waututh First Nation councillor Carleen Thomas. The Tsleil-Waututh live on the north shore of Burrard Inlet immediately across from Kinder Morgan’s Westridge oil terminal in Burnaby.

“We are still adamantly opposed to it and will continue to push for nation-to-nation conversation and dialogue about this expansion,” Thomas said. “The risks are too great to accept. We all know that’s not if a spill happens. It’s when a spill happens.”

Plans call for the expansion to follow the existing pipeline route wherever possible. Kinder Morgan is currently consulting with stakeholders along the route and conducting environmental and socio-economic impact assessments. It intends to file an application with the National Energy Board later this year to build and operate the expansion project.

Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson cited the company’s safety record in a news release on the announcement, saying Trans Mountain already has an existing footprint and established relationships. The company refers to the project as brownfield, meaning it is an addition to an existing facility, rather than greenfield, a totally new project — such as what rival Enbridge is proposing for northern B.C.

Trans Mountain was cited by the National Energy Board last November over a 90,000-litre crude oil spill at its Sumas tank farm near Abbotsford in January 2012, where operators failed to respond to warning alarms for three and a half hours, believing them to be false alarms. It took six hours from the first alarm before an operator arrived at the scene of the spill.

Eric Swanson of the environmental group Dogwood Initiative said the expansion shows clearly that the oilpatch wants to get more oil to the British Columbia west coast.

“But most British Columbians don’t seem to be interested, so it comes down to a political decision,” said Swanson. “Some shippers have made a commercial decision to support KMX 3 — Kinder Morgan’s plans, but the most important decision has yet to be made by the British Columbia government.”

He said although there are differences between the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipeline proposals, the fundamental issues are the same for B.C. residents.

“The question for British Columbians is whether we want to accept this category of catastrophic risk increasing at all. And we have quite a bit of evidence that most British Columbians — depending on what polls you look at, a wall of First Nations and a significant number of local governments — don’t want it at all.”

Jock Finlayson, chief policy officer at the Business Council of B.C., said the additional $1.3 billion spent on the project expansion will benefit the province through jobs and business opportunities.

But the fundamental issue, he said, is the Canadian impact of the pipeline expansion.

“At a time when we rather urgently need to be looking to diversify markets for energy, which is by leaps and bounds Canada’s largest export category; and need to expand capacity to get energy to existing markets, the Kinder Morgan project would do both of those potentially.

“From a Canadian point of view, it highlights the importance of going down that road, notwithstanding the fact that there are people who won’t like it for global and local reasons. That is not new.

“I believe this whole discussion around energy market diversification and energy infrastructure capacity constraints is hugely important from a Canadian point of view. That perspective doesn’t seem to be shared by a lot of municipal people here in Vancouver.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.